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| Volume 8, Issue 11 |
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In This Issue:
 Think small, win big with engagement marketing
The sales clinic: Why does your team get so many objections?
The personal touch: Four ways to enhance your listening skills
10 ways you can help your employees "get it done" every day
 Fighting the sales force blues
 Myspace, the sequel
 The power of prose [in your Marketing copy]
[Outsource your companies] story selling
 Obama draws 3 million in mobile VP event
That Wait for the Mobile Web? It’s Over, Says Nielsen
 Five steps to building brand equity for the small business
Six laws of proper e-Newsletter creation, and why you should ignore [them]
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Think small, win big with engagement marketing
Arthur Ceria is founder and Chief Creative Officer of CreativeFeed, a marketing consultancy and full-service creative agency with a focus on digital media that acts as the bridge between Silicon Valley and Madison Avenue. CreativeFeed works directly with brands and with advertising/marketing agencies to create and implement engaging
online/offline campaigns. Prior to opening CreativeFeed, Arthur was Senior Partner and Executive Creative Director of OgilvyOne San Francisco.
What kills good innovative marketing campaigns before they even have a chance to go live? Often it's misguided ideas about control and the place a brand really has in consumers' lives. We need to ask ourselves each and every time we come up with another brilliant concept for social/viral/user-generated content/engagement campaigns,
"What's in it for them?" "Them" are the consumers, the people who you hope to captivate. And unless your brand is...
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The sales clinic: Why does your team get so many objections?
As frustration runs high from both salespeople and business owners, what can be done to decrease the all too often problem of the customer objection?
Here, leading sales trainer Andy Preston explains why salespeople get so many objections and what can be done to overcome rejection...
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The personal touch: Four ways to enhance your listening skills
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S&MM online columnist Jeff Schmitt is a consultant from Dubuque, IA. His column, "The Personal Touch," is designed to help managers and professionals step back and evaluate how they think, interact and work.
"You're not listening to me!"
Have you ever heard these words from a customer? They certainly get our attention. Even more, they force us to step back and ask some uncomfortable questions. What did I say or do to alienate this person? What verbal cues did I miss? Did I put my agenda above his or her needs? Have I made other customers feel the same way? Our customers
are no different than ourselves. They crave someone who understands them, sympathizes with their difficulties and values their input. Most of all, customers expect a resolution. By sharpening our listening skills, we can better pinpoint our customers' concerns—and find solutions that address their real problems. In theory, listening
seems easy enough. Just sit there and soak in what someone says. In reality, variables ranging from our jaded attitudes to customer quirks often inhibit our ability to listen. To counter these distractions, apply these strategies:...
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10 ways you can help your employees "get it done" every day
Here, Richard Lepsinger presents 10 keys to inspire an "execution revolution" at your company. (Edited by Jonathan Tannenbaum)
Even though many companies envision themselves becoming a market leader one day, many employees often see these aspirations as far-fetched dreams. A recent survey conducted by OnPoint Consulting shows that almost half of respondents believe that their organization continually fails to execute its strategic vision. But it doesn't have to
be this way, says Richard Lepsinger, President of OnPoint. Your company really can keep its promises—but first you must take some tried and true steps to create a "get it done" culture. For example:...
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Fighting the sales force blues
How to keep reps motivated when they miss their numbers.
Sales Management
It's been a rough year for QuantumDigital, an Austin-based company that prints direct mail pieces, primarily for real estate agencies. As the housing market has tanked and customers have moved more of their marketing dollars online, QuantumDigital's real estate business has fallen 30 percent. In response, the $30 million company has added
new tools to its website, gone through a rebranding exercise, and struck partnerships with ad agencies in a bid to enter new markets. Even so, the sharp decline, after so many years of success, has taken an emotional toll on the company's 10 sales reps. Where success -- and bonus checks -- once came easily, now reps must fight for every
account... [At Quantum, Cosway spent a lot of time talking with CEO Steve Damman and COO Freddie Baird about the sales force's morale. The three of them decided to try to reinvigorate the team by devoting more resources to coaching and mentoring. First, Cosway...]
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Myspace, the sequel
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"Social Network" is so 2005. MySpace Cofounders Chris DeWolfe (left) and Tom Anderson are calling their site a "social portal". | photo by Jill Greenberg
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With Facebook surging, cofounders Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson have gone back to their roots -- music, pop culture, and a proven cash-flow ad model -- to spur a next phase of growth. Will that be enough for boss Rupert Murdoch?
Chris Dewolfe, the lanky, shaggily hip CEO of Myspace, is holding his last meeting of the day from a prone position, a collection of long limbs stacked on a tiny red love seat. The early evening powwow, taking place in the cramped office of his senior communications director, is interrupted when I come crashing in to say
good-bye. DeWolfe can be forgiven for putting his feet up. Along with cofounder and MySpace president Tom Anderson, he has lived through a lot of long days lately -- about four-and-a-half years' worth since the site first launched. In fact, a slight defensiveness hangs in the air here about the site's age. Not that it is too old, but
rather that it is younger than most Web watchers seem to remember. Everyone I talk to at MySpace HQ in Los Angeles, from DeWolfe and Anderson on down, mentions the four-and-a-half-year figure, as if to remind me that their biz is only a month older than their chief social-networking competition, the upstart some 350 miles to the
north, Facebook. It's understandable that the MySpace folks would feel a little slighted by all the attention Facebook has been getting. It was MySpace, after all, that grabbed...
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The power of prose [in your Marketing copy]
Whatever media outlet you frequent, it's likely filled with relentless prognostications of doom and gloom. High gas prices…home mortgage foreclosures…I could go on and on.
As reported here last issue (“On the Rebound,” August), marketers must focus on DM basics and employ emotional appeals if they want to succeed in a tough climate. But there's another fundamental you can't forget: copy. When crafting mailing pieces, print ads or Web banners, you have to focus on the specific words you choose to get
your readers involved. This will stimulate them to overcome reluctance — and respond the way you want them to. POSITION IT RIGHT A rose, with a different offer positioning, would smell even sweeter With apologies to Shakespeare, let's remember that offer positioning is responsible for...
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[Outsource your companies] story selling
Philosophy takes a reflective approach to marketing.
To its loyal customers, Philosophy is more than a skin-care products company. It's a lifestyle and an outlook. “It's also introspective and reflective,” says Sarah Superfon, director of interactive marketing and direct response for the Phoenix firm. As a result, so is its marketing... For example, in May the company ran a Mother's Day
contest called “Your Mom's Philosophy” during which it invited site users to share inspiring stories about their mothers... [To facilitate the contest, Philosophy used New York ad agency Dotbox Media and Bazaarvoice Stories, a new product from Bazaarvoice, which made its debut in 2006 offering outsourced Web site user-generated
ratings and reviews. While firms like Amazon.com have featured customer reviews for years, Austin, TX-based Bazaarvoice was believed to be the first to provide outsourced review services. Bazaarvoice employees manage one of the biggest risks of customer-posted content: They check each piece to screen for inappropriate messages.
The company also handles search engine optimization for clients. As of March, Bazaarvoice — whose customers include Dell, Macy's, Office Depot, Petco, QVC and Sears — claimed it had served more than 10 billion user-generated reviews worldwide. Using Bazaarvoice Stories, Philosophy invited women, through a ...]
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Obama draws 3 million in mobile VP event
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Recent developments in both the Democratic and Republican campaigns have given more proof—if it was needed—that Web 3.0 tactics are reaching into every aspect of our lives. They’ve also provided some operational lessons that marketers of brands a bit more everyday than the U.S. presidency should be watching closely.
For example, the Obama campaign used its convention milestone to bring its text-messaging campaign to a new pitch. Since at least a year ago April, Obama’s campaign staffers have been using both his Web site and his live appearances to ask supporters to pull out their mobile phones and text “HOPE” to 62262 (short code for
“Obama”, luckily for them.) Supporters who comply are asked to text in their ZIP codes to get updates about Democratic campaign events in their areas. By opting in, of course, they also become part of a phone number database that will pretty undoubtedly come in handy in getting out the vote on Election Day. And the fact that database has
so many mobile phone numbers—which, remember, are untouchable by the automatic dialers candidates can still use to reach your home landline phone—makes it all the more valuable. No word from the Democratic campaign about how big that phone bank is now. But Nielsen Mobile floated an estimate of the size of the single most notable Obama
mobile events: the naming of his vice presidential pick about ten days ago. On Aug. 10, the campaign announced that those who had registered their mobile phone numbers at the OBAMA short code would receive the name of the running mate before anyone else: at 3 a.m. EDT on Saturday, Aug. 24, before Obama and Biden appeared at a rally in
Springfield IL. After that weekend Nielsen Mobile, a division of The Nielsen Co., estimated that 2.9 million U.S. mobile subscribers got a text message from the Obama campaign over the course of Friday, Saturday and Sunday carrying the news of the running mate selection. Nielsen extrapolated...
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That Wait for the Mobile Web? It’s Over, Says Nielsen
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This summer seems to be offering highly anticipated blockbuster events for every taste.
If you’re a comic-book fan, there’s the new Batman movie. If you’ve been waiting since 1991 for new music from Guns N’ Roses, we learn that a track from a long-delayed album will be on the “Rock Band 2” video game. And if you’re a gadget geek, you were standing in line on July 15 for first crack at the new Apple iPhone 3G, cheaper,
faster and maybe more Web-enabled than its original touch-screen counterpart. But fans of the iPhone, and other smartphones able to access the Web, are growing less geeky and more mainstream all the time, and marketers who are waiting for the mobile Internet to go big should stop waiting. Those are the key takeaways of a new report
compiled by Nielsen Mobile from diverse research sources within the company, giving new hope to marketers who would like to start pushing content and brand messaging to users who aren’t at their laptop or home PC. The report, “Critical Mass: The Worldwide State of the Mobile Web”, takes a look at...
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Five steps to building brand equity for the small business
Mike O'Toole is executive vice president and partner at PJA Advertising & Marketing BtoB's 2008 Agency of the Year.
Instinctively, every small business owner understands the importance of brand equity, even if they may not be able to define the idea.
Marketing-speak aside, brand equity is how your customer recognizes why you are different and better than the alternative. Brand equity is built on that customer's direct experience with your product or service. This experience, repeated over time, creates equity or value in your brand. And it serves as a shorthand in the buyer's
mind that separates you from everyone else. Brand equity is what creates loyalty that carries beyond price or the occasional product or service bump in the road. It is the quality that motivates your customers to recommend their friends or colleagues to you. Everyone wants brand equity. But building it, when you are more likely to qualify for
the Inc. 500 rather than the Fortune 500, can be a puzzle. Particularly when the role models for brand equity are global icons like Coca Cola, Volvo, or Sony—hardly your peer set. The good news is that the path to building brand equity is clear. Here are [five] simple steps you can take to get started:...
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Email marketing disobedience: Six laws of proper e-Newsletter creation, and why you should ignore every one of them
Nobody loves email marketing more than I do. But even I admit that within the grand taxonomy of consumer touchpoints, e-newsletters hold a sorry position.
They're the longwinded busybodies who never get invited to the cool parties. Porcelain-skinned print campaigns turn up their perky, sans-serif noses at e-newsletters' frumpy templates and canned copy. Super Bowl spots kick sand in e-newsletters' bespectacled faces. Yet, these boxy embodiments of mediocrity move
product and build loyalty. Marketing people are aware of this—they've proven it with charts and everything. You need an e-newsletter and you know it. Before rolling up your sleeves, cranking up the REO Speedwagon, and cooking up some long-form
creation-wizard-based love, please review the following six bromides from a recent how-to article phoned in by a reigning email-marketing magnate. After each, I'll explain how to do the exact opposite so that you can avoid polluting the e-cosystem with mediocre e-newsletters...
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